Samuel Cartagena

Schmidt

FIQWS

11/14

Researched Critical Analysis Essay (20%)

What does it mean to love? Throughout history, the meaning of love has often been speculated by many interpreters, and though many of us are capable of resonating with this particular emotion, we are never truly able to determine why this phenomenon exists, as many different stages within our lives define the interpretation of love differently. In seeking to understand that which we don’t understand, we often search for the circumstances that border that particular concept, to derive meanings from the comparison and connections of ideas. Therefore, in seeking to understand the meaning of love, we need only look at the behaviors of people who are in love. Love is often revered as a positive concept that brings pure emotions and joy into life, albeit it can also accompany negative behavior that represents darker ambitions that humans are capable of expressing. Although the belief of love resonating more with pure traits seems a more beautiful idea, we have seen many examples throughout history that advocate that perhaps all that glitters is not gold. In more recent years within our history, the human mindset has been criticized to a vastly greater extent than in the classical era’s that formed the stigma that to love was only to feel passionate and romantic emotions for another. This semester we have projected an immense amount of thought into the operations behind love. In particular, we have invested an incredible amount of time towards the actual mechanisms behind romantic relationships. This assignment will serve as a critical analysis into the nature of love, and to determine whether love is as blissful as it may appear, or if to love, one must also resign themselves to the sensation of pain.

Sigmund Freud was known to many as the founder of psychoanalysis and a great critic of human behavior, being the first to popularize the belief that the human mind is not as pure as we would have liked to believe. Freud became infamous for his case studies within his field, and for his proposal of ideas that seemed radical at the time of discovery. Perhaps his single most essential concept was that the human psyche was composed of several aspects that reflected many different schemas and patterns of thoughts expressed within human behavior. Freud’s theory of personality saw the psyche structured into three elements – the id, ego, and superego. (Freud, 1923) These were recognized as systems that were naturally integrated into the brain and have developed as a result of human evolution, representing several phases of thought that the human mind operates within. Freud proposed that the id was the primitive and instinctual part of the human mind that incorporates sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, and the part of the unconscious psyche which responded directly and immediately to basic urges and desires. The super-ego operates as an ethical conscience and the aspect of the personality that provides moral standards by which the ego operates. And the ego was the sensible half that mediated between the needs of the id and the super-ego, serving as an individual’s connection to reality. Freud’s discoveries regarding human developmental behavior are particularly important within the analysis of love as it is expressed within human beings, and he recognized this within his work when he elaborated that these particular aspects of the human psyche were also represented in other aspects of human personality. Freud expanded on the aspects of the human psyche with his pleasure principle, which served as the natural guide of the id that sought gratification for an individual’s urges. When we consider the application of these basic urges within romance, we understand that as most relationships occur between two individuals, there is often a give-and-take relationship that addresses both of their urges respectively, with each partner typically fulfilling specific purposes within the relationship. It is then that we can conclude that each relationship has its own particular dynamic, with one partner typically expressing more dominant behavior, and the other expressing more submissive behavior. 

Freud’s pleasure principle applies even to these dynamics of the psyche, through the id. (Freud, 1920) The pleasure principle is the concept that each urge the body receives must be satisfied immediately, whatever the consequences. When the id experiences its urges being fulfilled, and we experience pleasure, and when we don’t satisfy these urges, we experience displeasure. The id engages within the most basic form of thinking,  which is primitive and irrational. This form of the psyche has no comprehension of objective reality and is selfish and wishful in nature. The ego is then made relevant in regards to the pleasure principle, through the application of a sense of realism based on societal standards and etiquette, by mediating specifically the unrealistic urges and desires that the id may want. Freud directly states, “The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world.” (Freud, 1923, p. 25) The ego operates by working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s urges and sacrifices immediate gratification from the pleasure principle in order to allow the individual to remain better suited within society. The ego considers the social realities and norms behind the individual’s behavioral etiquette and designs specific rules in deciding how to behave. Lastly, the pleasure principle also applies in regards to the super-ego, as it functions in a way that is similar to the ego in controlling the id’s impulses. However, the super-ego functions especially as a disciplinary assistant, rather than a moral compass, by controlling specifically that which society may not view as openly, such as sex and aggressive impulses. The super-ego serves as an individual’s source of discipline, as it persuades the ego to pursue genuine goals and moralistic aspirations rather than simple and realistic ones that it can achieve. As all aspects of the psyche correspond within this pleasure principle, we can only interpret that the behaviors that follow must also apply in the same sense.

It is from here that we derive specific behaviors around love and relationships based on the psyche’s interpretation of the pleasure principle. It is surprisingly common for individuals within relationships to develop certain behaviors based on the developments of these psyches, specifically those of masochistic and sadistic tendencies. Depending on how their pleasure principle may have manifested as a result of the lives they lived in cultivating their id, ego, and super-ego, an individual within a relationship may develop these behavioral tendencies. An individual who grew attached to the notion of having their pleasures denied may develop masochistic tendencies, and grow an attachment to experiencing pain and suffering, as their method of pleasure, especially within a sexual context. An individual who grew into the notion of having their pleasures fulfilled by others would be more likely to become a sadistic individual, and derive pleasure and satisfaction in inflicting pain onto others. This semester in studying Russian literature, we have subjected ourselves to the studying of several characters and individuals who partake in several different romantic behaviors and relationships with one another as a result of the psyche’s that they developed throughout the course of their lives. The most popular example of these developmental schemas in action and how they affected the narrative corresponding within these characters lies within the Russian narrative, The Torrents of Spring. The novel depicts the tale of Dimitry Pavlovich Sanin, a man who is particularly encapsulated within a romantic dilemma.

In summary, the novel serves as an accurate depiction of several psyche archetypes that have been bred by the upbringing of the characters lives as fulfilled within the narrative. A middle aged Sanin reflects on the events of his past life to illuminate the narrative, to a tormenting vision of the vanity of human life, specifically envisioning himself on a boat in midst of a body of water, with several monsters rising from the depths to cascade him in misery. This reflects his fear of age and death, that may have arisen as a result of the events that he ends up reflecting on, the events that he feels led him down to the debaucherous lifestyle that has brought him such suffering. The novel essentially depicts a younger Sanin in the midst of a strange relationship, in which he grows an attraction to someone who is already present within a relationship. This however, is not the focus of the referencing of the narrative. The short summary of the beginning of the narrative serves as a segue to one specific character that deserves an incredible amount of attention, Maria Nikolayevna Polozov. This character takes an unnatural amount of interest in the affairs of Sanin after he explains that he holds admiration for another, and ends up utilizing her feminine charms to ensnare Sanin into meeting her sexual desires. Maria establishes herself as a promiscuous woman who holds interest in demoralizing and corrupting Sanin, in a manner akin to a carnivorous creature devouring their prey. When merely interacting with her upon having initially met her, Sanin is immediately intelligent enough to know that there was more to Maria than met his glance. “Snake! ah, she’s a snake!” Sanin was thinking meanwhile; “but what a lovely snake!” (Turgenev, 72) Sanin is capable of discerning through Maria’s very subtle actions, that spoke with such grace and attraction, along with her eyes that glanced at his figure, that the nature of Maria’s actions was not as pure as she had intended. Unfortunately for Sanin, he was not the wiser within this instance, and ends up allowing himself to be exploited by Maria, who had also been in a married relationship, but was allowed to freely pursue sexual interests at her discretion. 

Maria embodies sadistic tendencies in this regard, given that she understands Sanin’s goals to obtain the affection of Gemma, the woman who he loves that is in a relationship. Maria, also within a relationship, instead chooses to continue to utilize the flexibility of her arrangement with her partner to use it as a tool to pursue her own desires, which is the degradation of Sanin upon his goal. Maria aims to corrupt and debase Sanin so that he sinks even further morally than he had already sunk before, aiming to seduce and attract Sanin’s affections toward her as an obstacle in the presence of Sanin earning the affections of Gemma. Maria takes personal delight out of degrading the plans that Sanin has concocted within his mind, and thus can be said to display a lesser control over her id, often gratifying her own pleasure principle as often as she can provide. Sanin also displays sadistic tendencies of a similar motive when he seeks to attain the affections of Gemma from Karl Kluber. Conversely, Sanin displays masochistic tendencies within these actions, as he allows himself to be captured in Maria’s charms, despite him already having taken notice of her potential ulterior motives, he allows himself to fall into the trap and fulfill her desires at the expense of the desire he had before. He allows himself to feel pleasure at the unconscious knowledge of his plans for Gemma being thwarted by the arrival of someone with as much feminine charm as Maria. He remains focused on his goal consciously, despite this unconscious acknowledgement of her dangerousness and eventually begins to return the same signals he was scrupulous of. “Those eyes of hers seemed to ramble, seemed to hover over his features, and he smiled in response to them—a smile of civility, but still a smile. It was so much gained for her that he had gone off into abstractions, that he was discoursing upon truth in personal relations, upon duty, the sacredness of love and marriage…. It is well known that these abstract propositions serve admirably as a beginning … as a starting-point….” (Turgenev, 72)

We can ascertain through the behaviors of the characters within the narrative, as well as the developmental schema that Freud proposes that these characters are sound evidence behind the suffering that love can bring. Love is beheld as an object of desire within the narrative, and these characters are ensnared within a web that surpasses each of their individual motives. As Maria had intended for Sanin, his admiration for another ends up being debased entirely, as his life course is altered onto that prophetic vision that the middle-aged Sanin views many years into the future as the event that led to his midlife crisis. A young pure-hearted Sanin could not have possibly anticipated that the affections he would hold for one woman at a time, could possibly have led him on the downward spiral that his life progressed into. What was once an innocent young man’s dark ambition, ended up becoming a massive controversy that ruined the dreams he might have held in such high regard in allowing himself to love people that he should not have loved. The previous images of love that Sanin held in such high regard at the beginning of his encounter with Gemma vanish into a debaucherous lifestyle that never truly gives him the satisfaction that he sought for, and imposed him with the fear of morality and a hatred for the futility of life. With all of these arrangements together, it is indefinitely easy to ascertain that love is not as positive as Sanin or any other positive interpreter may have initially believed, because it holds the potential to bring about a great amount of suffering. 

Works Cited

Freud, S. (1920). Beyond the pleasure principle.

Freud, S. (1923)  The ego and the id.

Ivan Turgenev, The Torrents of Spring